State capture emerges as a fact …

An impression might have been given recently that parliamentary meetings only occur as and when e-NCA cherry picks a meeting for the evening news on the subject of state capture. Therefore, one might think, every parliamentary meeting is either about the SABC or Eskom, Transnet or Denel. Nothing could further from the truth.

Although the perverse facts behind the carefully planned act of state capture, involving Bell Pottinger, the Gupta family, their friends and associates, the actual crime in parliamentary terms is non-disclosure to Parliament committed by public servants in the name of the same “prominent” persons, plus lying and falsification in terms of an oath taken to serve the nation.

Parliament, as a structure, has remained untarnished as the second pillar of separated powers. It is the players who have broken faith.

Hundreds of meetings

This is not to say that truth has always been exercised in Parliament in the past nor to claim that from the President down to backbenchers, all have been unaware that fake news has been fielded in parliamentary meetings. But what is heartening is that the parliamentary process has been an enormous hurdle for the crooked to overcome.

In any one of the four sessions a year, each roughly equating in timelines to the terms of a school calendar, there are some three to four hundred committee meetings in the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces.

The subject matters covered represent the activities of forty seven government departments, literally hundreds of SOEs and all legislation which is tabled for the Statute Book must be debated. All this is conducted with two audiences. It is a daunting programme.

Standing out

But soon it was noticeable that it was the meetings on SOEs, particularly those with their own boards and where tender processes were involved, that there was a common theme emerging. In each case it was a matter of strategic decisions not being taken to Parliament for approval; balance sheets not squaring up to meet the requirements of the Auditor General and the sudden arrival of newly appointed board members with little or no experience of matters under discussion.

It all stood out like a sore thumb. Meanwhile, investigative journalism was to become a major force in parliamentary affairs.

In fact it was the parliamentary system that began slowly to reject the manipulative processes being fielded. Many an MP started demanding investigative reports from Cabinet ministers with cross-party support; parliamentary rules were enforced in order to restrain the passage of mischievous legislation and the pointing of fingers and the use of the kind of language that is only allowed under parliamentary privilege contributed to the wearing down of the cover-up machine.

To the rescue

Eventually, between the AmaBhungane team and the BDFM team and others such as City Press, investigative journalism saved the day. It could then be seen in writing that many of the issues so slowly being uncovered in Parliament, where nobody could pierce the web of intrigue and see the picture in its entirety, the full story was beginning to take shape.

The extent of the theft is still not known and still emerging are new players in the list of “prominent persons”. There is also still no apparent follow up by either SAPS or the Hawks, nor matters acted upon by the National Prosecuting Authority.

Worse, many do not expect this to happen – so cynical has the taxpayer become and so deep are the criminal waters. But, as the saying goes, “every dog has its day”.

In the engine room

Despite the bad publicity for Parliament and the institution itself being under fire as to whether or not Parliament is a reliable democratic tool, a good number of MPs, especially opposition members, have been slaving away. This is despite the appointed Secretary to Parliament, Gengezi Mgidlana, going on “special leave” whilst allegations into his possible violations of the PMFA are investigated.

Mgidlana was appointed as “CEO” of Parliament by the Presidency. His jaunts overseas accompanied by his wife are the subject of investigation and have been the cause of strike action by parliamentary staff for nearly a year, whilst their own pay packets are frozen.

This matter seems to have mirrored the very issues being debated in Parliament. Fortunately and most responsibly, the strikes have been orchestrated so as to have little major effect on the parliamentary schedule

Top heavy

Meanwhile, despite the top guy being a passenger in his own system, notices are going out on time, the parliamentary schedule is available every morning and the regular staff are hard at it. Now is the time in the parliamentary diary when the April budget vote is activated; money is made available and departmental programmes initiated. Hearings have been conducted on many important pieces of legislation.

There is an extraordinary team in Cape Town which runs Parliament, especially researchers and secretaries to committees.

Train smash

Added to this, if it was not enough, a normally busy schedule was further complicated by urgent meetings on poor governance; tribunal findings; briefings for new members of Cabinet and the fact that to match President Zuma’s ever-expanding Cabinet with appropriate government departments there were some fifty portfolio and select committees all being served by a reduced Parliamentary staff.

The extent to which corruption is embedded into government’s spending programme makes parliamentary oversight a difficult and lengthy task, especially when under performance or poor governance matters are involved. It all reflects the times we live in. In one day alone there is not enough parliamentary time for a whole range of public servants to be “in the dock” to answer questions on matters involving millions of rand.

No court of law

To be fair, it is often as difficult for the respondent to get around to answering as it is for parliamentarians to get to the truth. When you know the boss is on the take, how does one answer? Issues tend to go around in circles.

Sifting out the rhetoric when the truth is shrouded in political intrigue is no easy task in Parliament especially when people are frightened of losing their jobs.

As the millions of rand stolen turn into billions of rand during the early part of 2017 and parliamentary committees were introduced to new “acting” directors in charge of government funding, TV cameras popped up in all corners of the parliamentary precinct. One was constantly tripping over metres and metres of black cable to caravan control rooms enabling the public to watch the latest saga.

Camera shy

At the same time, Parliament is clearly now being side-lined by members of the Cabinet or avoided by Directors General and this maybe because of this new found public form of entertainment of spotting the good guys and shaming the captured ones.

In the past, the abuse of parliamentary rules by the incumbent President used to be considered as country-boy innocence but now the position has changed. As any election approaches, parliamentary rhetoric always descends into low grade babble in the National Assembly but this time it is very different. there is a clear disconnect between Parliament and the President.

With the addition of the now infamous “white minority capital” campaign to the debate, orchestrated ostensibly as we now know from London (as probably was the over employed expression of “radical economic transformation”) most of the forty-seven ministers and deputy ministers hammered out the same slogans in their budget vote speeches 9r at any given opportunity to speak, as if orchestrated.

Looking back: 2nd session

Going back to the beginning of 2016/7, Parliament has ploughed through the Nkandla mess; the SABC crisis; the Eskom governance exposures; the troubles at SAA; the failures and manipulations at Denel; crookery at Transnet; the PRASA scandals and in the losses at PetroSA, the latter being just sheer bad management it seems driven by political desire.

All of this has involved a lot of committee time far better spent on enlightening issues to assist the economy and create jobs. The “blame game” simply led to a jungle of write offs with no explanations but, suddenly, an ill-timed series of cabinet re-shuffles rattled a hundred cages.

D-day

Friday, March 31, 2017 will always be remembered following a period of stun grenades and parliamentary brawling in the House as President Zuma announced yet another set of choices to make up his Cabinet. In committee meetings, in no less than eight portfolios, new or changed Ministers and Deputy Ministers appeared at meetings with little background.

The second session of the 2017 Parliament had this extraordinary start and on it ending, the arrival of the Gupta emails has now confirmed and named many involved in the whole issue of truthful depositions before Parliament. No doubt a lot more shocks are yet to come.

The next session of Parliament will represent one of the arenas where the gladiatorial challenge will be played out on state capture together with the battle to avoid fusion in the separation of powers.

It is to be hoped that spring at the end of the third session will herald more than just another summer.

Shareholder Management Bill could kill cosy jobs….

sent to clients 20 Dec…..Public Enterprises Minister, Lynne Brown, reports that she is to introduce, as adraft, the Shareholder Management Bill as part of a plan to introduce more leadership ability and some form of continuity for the state owned enterprises (SOCs) under her control. This includes Eskom, Transnet, Denel, SA Express, Alexkor and Safcol.

Maybe start of something big.

Whilst troubled SAA is now an independent, falling under National Treasury for the moment. Providing President Zuma makes no more changes, Minister Pravin Gordhan is set to sort out National Treasury itself and challenge the management style of his old stomping ground, SARS.. How much come out of the Cabinet Lekgotla is critical.

The problem children

Meanwhile, PetroSA is in real deep water, the entity falling under Central Energy Fund (CEF) and which reports itself to Department and Energy (DOE). But at least the PetroSA problem is now in the open with somebody obviously having to take over the reins and sort the mess out, probably CEF itself.

Oddly enough there are people in CEF who know exactly what the problem is but once again politicians pushed experts in the wrong direction, it appears.

In addition, the Passenger Rail Association (PRASA) is very much on the slippery slope and, together with SANRAL, both present highly contentious transport issues, are now in the hands of to untangle

Public Enterprises comes to the party.

Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown appears to be getting the senior management of her portfolio under control and whilst there could possibly be power supply problems at Eskom she says, because “machines can break down unexpectedly”, the leadership is there, as is the case with Denel.

Minister Brown recently reported at an AmCham meeting in Cape Town that there are around seven hundred SOCs, an extraordinary fact, but bearing in mind the fact that South Africa is reputed to have the largest head count in public service per population count, this would appear quite probable.

On the road again

With Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa chairing an Integrated Marketing Committee, which will hopefully designate which entities should remain SOCs and those which should be absorbed back into their relevant departments, there appears some hope with regard to containing the ballooning public service machine which has characterised President Zuma’s presidency.

Hands off appointments

An essential element of Minister Lynne Brown’s plan is to remove the appointment to the boards of the entities under her domain away from Ministers, including herself, to a shareholder management team that creates a leadership operational plan for all SOCs and appoints, through due process, a tightly run appointment system. A brave proposition indeed but it does indicate that Minister Brown is her own person.

Whilst the proposals might look like state control, in fact it is a clear signal that government may have heard the message that the current system of Ministers appointing board members is not working and is one of the reasons leading to what the auditor general calls “useless and wasteful expenditure”.

On the drawing board

The Shareholder Management Bill, Minister Brown said subsequently in Johannesburg, will first need a concept paper (perhaps she means a White Paper) and such could be released after the Cabinet Lekgotla in February, with an intention of introducing such as system by the end of 2016.

Minister Brown said that she herself as a Minister would therefore be excluded from making appointments in her own SOCs for a start. Perhaps this system can be applied to all forty-seven government departments and agencies, suggested a questioner bu the Minister would not be drawn into matters outside of her brief.

Leadership needed

During the same address, she added that Eskom was “not out of the woods” yet and there was still not sufficient electricity to facilitate economic growth but this would change. Minister Brown said none of the entities under her control “would be approaching the National Treasury with begging bowls.”

One small step

No doubt, as far as confirmation of an appointment is concerned, the Minister involved will still have to “approve” any selection decision by the independent team of specialists but it is worth watching the outcome of the debate on the shortly-to-be tabled Broadcasting Bill, if only to see if the appointment of inept senior appointments can be halted or reversed.

What has come out of the Eskom, PRASA and PetroSA issues is that a person who has no right to be in a position of leadership, or worse one who has supplied fraudulent qualifications, leads to frustration and anger by those with genuine skills and high academic qualifications lower down the ladder and at the coalface.

This is in the space of government service where technical skills are located and badly needed and it is hoped that Minister Lynne Brown has more of these “eureka” moments.

Previous articles on category subjectPetroSA on the rocks for R14.5bn – ParlyReportSA Central Energy Fund slowly gets its house in order – ParlyReport Shedding light on Eskom – ParlyReportSA

Editorial….

Cabinet hopes are Brown, Ramaphosa, Gordhan…..

Public Enterprises Minister, Lynne Brown, reports that she is to introduce as a cabinet draft, theShareholder Management Bill as part of a plan to introduce leadership ability and some form of continuity for the state owned enterprises (SOCs) under her control. This includes Eskom, Transnet, Denel, SA Express, Alexkor and Safcol.

We hope this is the start of something big.

The last few weeks have been an exercise in disaster, so let’s try and take a positive spin on things from a parliamentary viewpoint. Whilst troubled SAA is now an independent, falling under National Treasury and if President Zuma minds his own business, Minister Pravin Gordhan is to sort out National Treasury itself and also the troubled SARS, which he re-designed in the first place and which became such a success working with Trevor Manuel.

More problem children

Meanwhile, PetroSA is in real deep water falling, the entity falling under Central Energy Fund (CEF) reporting to Department and Energy (DOE). With Minister Joemat-Pettersson not back from COP21 or wherever, the country still faces some serious energy issues. But at least the PetroSA problem is now all in the open, with somebody obviously having to take over the reins and the mess, probably CEF itself.
Oddly enough there are people in CEF who know exactly what the problem is but once again politicians pushed experts in the wrong direction, it appears.

In addition, the Passenger Rail Association (PRASA) is very much on the slippery slope and, together with SANRAL, both present highly contentious transport issues which are now in the hands of Minister Cyril Ramaphosa to untangle. Troubling times indeed.

Public Enterprises comes to the party

Now Minister Lynne Brown appears to be getting the senior management of her portfolio under control and whilst we could still have shutdowns at Eskom she says, because “machines can break down unexpectedly”, the leadership is there she says, as is the case with her Denel.
Lynne Brown recently reported that there are around 700 SOCs, an extraordinary fact, but bearing in mind the fact that South Africa is reputed to have the largest head count in public service per population count, this would appear quite possible.

On the road again

With Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa chairing an Integrated Marketing Committee, which will hopefully designate which entities should remain SOCs and those which should be absorbed back into their relevant departments, there appears some hope with regard to containing the ballooning public service machine which has characterised President Zuma’s presidency.

Hands off appointments

An essential element of Minister Lynne Brown’s plan is to remove the appointment to the boards of the entities under her domain away from cabinet and Ministers, including herself, to a shareholder management team that creates a leadership operational plan for all SOCs and appoints, through due process, a tightly run appointment book.

A brave proposition indeed but it does indicate that Minister Brown is her own person.

Whilst the proposals might look like state control, in fact it is a clear signal that government may have heard the message that the current system of Ministers appointing board members is not working, is open to abuse and what is worse, the consequent “jobs for the boys” system results in taxpayer’s money being thrown away through bad management, corruption and what the auditor general calls “useless and wasteful expenditure”.

On the drawing board

The Shareholder Management Bill, Minister Brown said in Johannesburg, will first need a concept paper (perhaps she means a White Paper) and such could be released after the February Cabinet Lekgotla in February, with an intention of introducing such as system by the end of 2016.

Whilst it is pretty obvious who should not be on such an appointment team, the plan begs the question of will be chosen to occupy such critical posts but it is far too early to cogitate on this one. With Ministers changing their portfolios as if it was a game of musical chairs, there is reason to congratulate Minister Brown on the statement that she herself as a Minister would be excluded from making appointments in her own SOCs.

Leadership needed

During the same address, she added that Eskom was “not out of the woods” yet and there was still not sufficient electricity to facilitate economic growth, but the leadership issue was being addressed satisfactorily with the right people being appointed. Brown said none of the entities under her control “would be approaching the National Treasury with begging bowls”.

Perhaps this is the principle being adopted behind the scenes with the SABC, which whilst not affecting business and industry other than travel costs, unlike trade and investment hurdles and industrial strategic changes, SABC is threatened by the possibility of being returned to its parent government department which at first glance appeared to be a move by President Zuma to gain control of state financed media, Mugabe style.

However, in a broad sense it seems to be Minister Brown’s idea that appointments to the top echelons running the country should be as a result of finding those qualified to do so rather than being handled by totally unqualified persons, some with solicitous intent, and others trying to retain power with dubious appointments such as having friends, in the case of the SABC, to broadcast “the truth” to specific rural audiences.

Unprincipled governance remains the one of the biggest problems facing South Africa, intrinsically coupled to (and in some cases causing} lack of growth and lack of jobs.

Croneyism

Bad appointments by Ministers and of Ministers has been the cornerstone of control by patronage, the route for corruption and the reason for sheer bad management, a practice now openly exposed but not yet controlled by any means. From a parliamentary viewpoint, let us leave it there. The rest is being said by the media but most MPs when they return to Parliament in late January 2016 will have realized that sheer stupidity can ruin their own futures and their pensions.

But if Minister Lynne Brown, in her practical and down to earth manner, can come up with the remarkable idea of Cabinet Ministers, hopefully including the Presidency as well, not interfering in who does what as far as expertise is concerned, then perhaps this can be applied to all 47 government departments and agencies.

One small step

No doubt as far as confirmation of an appointment, the Minister involved may still have to “approve” such a decision but it is worth watching the outcome of the debate on the shortly-to-be tabled Broadcasting Bill, if only to see if the appointment of inept senior appointments can be halted or reversed.

What has come out of the Eskom, PRASA and PetroSA issues is that a bad leader with no qualification or right to be in a position of leadership, or worse led by one who has supplied fraudulent qualifications, leads to frustration and anger by those with genuine skills and high academic qualifications lower down the ladder at the coalface. This is in the space of government service where technical skills are located and badly needed.

Thousands of new coaches to be built for a start…..

Delivery of the first of new rail car rolling stock will start arriving in South Africa during the beginning of 2015 with a factory being built in South Africa to complete the balance of 3,600 new coaches, all being part of a R51bn passenger coach contract recently concluded by the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) with Gibela Rail Transportation.

CEO of PRASA, Lucky Montana, told the parliamentary committee on transport two weeks ago that the entire the current fleet would be replaced in the course of time and all trains, both commuter and long distance, would boast high level security, bigger seats, a new shape and better communication and technology. A statement was issued in early December confirming that the tender had been won by Gibela.

Worldwide tender process instigated

Minister Sibusiso Ndebele instigated the tender system for new rolling stock in mid-April this year “inviting manufacturers from all over the world to participate in the procurement process” and during the launch indicated a target of 65% localisation target as part of the bid conditions for the new rolling stock.

He said then that “PRASA must ensure the manufacture of an estimated 7,224 Metrorail coaches nationally to meet the passenger demand over the next 20 years as well as the upgrading and the construction of new rail infrastructure such as depots facilities and signalling.” Investment projects at key national high-passenger demand corridors in KwaZulu Natal, Western Cape and Gauteng were critical he said.

Hand in hand with necessary infrastructure

In addition, PRASA is currently implementing a series of such as the construction of a rail link for the Bridge City development north of Durban as well as the Greenview doubling project east of Tshwane “which will address the archaic single rail design and cater for the increased demands for a more efficient service in this area”.

Over 50 station upgrades, the building of new stations and developing “intermodal hubs” are underway in conjunction with local and provincial governments. Montana said at the time, “We have chosen strategic high-passenger corridors as our key upgrade corridors where the demand for our service is quite high with an average 30,000 to 60,000 passengers at peak hours”.

As far as the new contract is concerned, Montana said this week, “It was a mistake for South Africa to not invest in railway for the past 33 years. We are paying the price for that lack of investment.” About 90% of current passenger coach rolling stock was purchased in the 1950s, with the last purchase made in 1986, he said.

State of art travel

“The new coaches will have air-conditioning and will have CCTVs for security plus on-board communication”, he said, adding that automatic doors would be included on the short-haul coaches that the long distance trains would have WiFi installed, plus modern toilet facilities.

“We are not looking at increasing fares in the next five years on a massive scale; there will be adjustments to meet inflation, but we are saying that the current workers can’t bear the burden for the upgrade.”

À la Française

PRASA has now invested R123bn to the upgrade its portfolio over a period of 20 years and production of the trains are set to start in 2014. It was in November that PRASA announced that it had accepted a tender from French company Alstom for the programme, Gibela now being announced as the name of the consortium formed as a result. Canadian, Spanish and Chinese companies also bid.

The CEO of Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), Lucky Montana, told the public services select committee that a preferred bidder for new passenger coaches would be selected before the end of 2012 and a contract to commence building the first of 3000 new coaches over the next ten years concluded by the middle of 2013.

He told parliamentarians that the current stock of some 4,600 Metrorail coaches “would soon be unsafe to use” ranging in age from 20 to 50 years old. The same applied to its 1,200 long-distance Shosholoza Meyl train units and the replacements were to be supplied on the basis that that 65% of content was locally manufactured.

This would mean the bidder would have to have in place the manufacturing ability to meet such a commitment, Montana said, adding that “the first train would roll out of the new manufacturing plant in 2014/15.”

Montana said that whilst finished coaches could probably be imported sooner, the plan was rather to revive the local manufacturing industry thus developing skills and new jobs. A feasibility study had been undertaken by Prasa with National Treasury and the departments of public enterprises and transport, and together they had established the need for some 7,200 coaches.

He told the select committee that in general terms South Africa’s rail system as it stood “had come to the end of its design life”. Technology used was obsolete, he said, and the whole rail structure was inefficient because of high costs of maintenance and “there are many areas that we can’t close down because we have to provide some sort of service.”

Of the international standards criteria for passenger coaches, of the twenty two issues that should be met for passenger safety and comfort, the current fleet only met one item on the list – that of heating for passengers, he said.

Signalling systems also had to be totally renewed throughout the country, he said, current ineffective systems currently inhibiting any ability to increase turn around or run more trains.

R7bn in new signalling systems was to be spent, Montana said, and he showed parliamentarians a capital expenditure budget indicating a spend of R26bn on rolling stock and infrastructure development which included signalling over the period 2012/13 to 2014/15.

In terms of future planning, he described a Johannesburg/ Durban high speed link; a further high speed rail system for the Moloto rail corridor; a rail link for Baragwanath to Johannesburg and commuter rail links for Cape Town and King Shaka airports.

In a subsequent development outside of committees, Ben Martins, the newly appointed minister of transport, in a replying to a parliamentary question on the subject of commuter needs commented that it was “a constitutional aspiration and a stated policy that public (rail) transport should eventually devolve to the level of government closest to its delivery.”

Minister Martins noted that PRASA, as it was currently structured, “provided for limited accountability to customers” and it was imperative to “restructure service delivery in such a way as to introduce accountability and obtain better governance over the deployment of public funds.”

Talks were underway with regional governments, provincial structures and municipalities on the running of metro rail services, minister Martins stating that at this stage it was government’s intention is to devolve “only rail operational subsidies” to metropolitan municipalities, who would act as “conduits for payment” and not act as operators.

George Mahlalela, director general, department of transport (DOT), told the portfolio committee on transport recently during the department’s strategic plan for 2012/13 that plans included a Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) upgrade to expand what was described as “the seven priority commuter rail corridors.”

He said DOT would be establishing a Rail Economic Regulator in terms of a draft Rail Act now being drawn up once the stakeholders in South Africa’s new rail structures could be more clearly established.

A Green Paper formulating the future of rail transport was shortly to be made public.

This would involve the subject of where public participation could be injected into the new structures, Mahlalela said. PRASA had recently announced a multi-million rand re-capitalisation programme to invest in new coach rolling stock, he noted.

On road transport, the DG noted that the finalised Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act (AARTO) would be “rolled out” and much in the way of traffic legislation would be made subject to review.

He acknowledged that much attention was needed on road maintenance generally throughout South Africa and attempts were being made to catch-up on the back-log. He said “Ironing out the difficulties from the combining of road maintenance where disaster relief was directed” had been a problem.

On air freight services a new civil aviation strategy was be drawn up with amendments to legislation planned and a Green Paper on maritime transport was to appear by May 2012.

There were also plans to finalise the National Land Transport Amendment Act in 2012. He promised also that the Ports Act of 2005 would be looked at very shortly.

In the light of Transnet’s enormous future expenditure, PRASA, the newly-established Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa – combining South African Rail Commuter Corporation, Metrorail, Shosholoza Meyl and road transport operator Translux under a new name – recently told the parliamentary transport committee that only two-thirds of the rail passenger fleet in the form of coaches were currently in operation owing to reliability issues.

Group CEO Lucky Montana advised a 20-year procurement process that would be split into two portions, the first being a ten-year contract of coach deliveries running from 2015 and a second contract commencing 2025.

The R136-billion contract renewal programme would be for the design, building and shared maintenance of the rolling stock and final arrangements would be in terms of strict black economic empowerment criteria.

He admitted that the delivery timelines were “very tight” and he told parliamentarians that on top of this approximately 4,500 units had to be “retired” in three to five years. Montana said that a good number of the old coaches had to be scrapped when the new fleet started arriving. Some of the older coaches are aged between 47 and 52 and with the rail passenger crisis building he told parliamentarians, “We have to move with speed”.

He said that some local sub-Sahara African rail operators had indicated that they would be interested in acquiring a number of working units from PRASA.

PRASA was to retain its present gauge and not revert to international standard gauge as implemented on Gautrain. The rolling stock programme, which also included new depots, would then also add to already existing projects, such as the current roll-out of a new signalling system and the improvement of station infrastructure. Some of the first corridors targeted for a major overhaul by PRASA were Johannesburg to Naledi, and Khayelitsha to Cape Town. PRASA’s enterprise programme management office head, Piet Sebola, said that the new passenger trains would be 12-car units and that they would have to feature on-board wi-fi access and closed circuit television cameras to ensure commuter safety

As far as indigenisation was concerned, PRASA said the localisation target on the new rolling stock would be 65% and possibly in some cases reaching 80%. Local components could include the car body shell, door system, axles, wheels, lighting, interior cladding, bogie frame, windows and seats.

The first train is to be delivered to PRASA in 2015 and the new fleet in the first ten-year contract would be split between Gauteng, which would receive 2 400 coaches, the Western Cape 1 800, eThekwini 936 and the Eastern Cape 228.

Formal tender processes would begin in March and the successful bidder would be announced by the minister in June 2013

SARS role at border posts being clarified …. In adopting the Border Management Authority (BMA) Bill, Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs agreed with a wording that at all future one-stop border […]